


Cherished

by mcschnuggles



Series: Busted [3]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, CGRE - Caregiver/Age Regressor, Caregiver!Rem, Gen, Littles are Known AU, Not Canon Compliant, Regressing!Misa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcschnuggles/pseuds/mcschnuggles
Summary: Misa's been adjusting to life without Light relatively easily. Well, with a few minor hangups.





	Cherished

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is going to be the last of this series. I've written the 3 main ideas I had when putting this series together, so yeah. I'll definitely add more if inspiration strikes me, but for now, thanks for the support, all!

Rem would do anything for Misa, and one of those things includes standing on the sidelines as she shoots her summer commercials.

She won’t pretend to understand the fashion, acting, and photoshoots, but it makes Misa happy, and that’s good enough for her.

“That’s a wrap!” The director says, which Rem has learned means that they’re done filming. She stands, pockets her phone, and stretches her arms.

“_REM!_”

Thankfully, Rem is quick on her feet, and she’s able to pluck Misa from the air with ease.

She gives Misa a little twirl before setting the girl firmly against her hip. “Hello, Misa. Did you have fun today?”

She nods. “They even let me eat the ice cream!”

A slight smile comes to Rem’s lips. Misa had been scheduled for an ice cream commercial today. She’d been looking forward to this one for weeks.

“Not too much, I hope.”

Misa shakes her head, pouting. “Only one scoop. We should get more on the way home! To celebrate!”

“Nice try.” Rem sets her down, opting to take her hand instead. Her shinigami strength disappeared along with the rest of her powers, and despite her regularly working out, she still can’t carry Misa for more than a few minutes at a time. “You haven’t even had lunch yet.”

“Then we should go get lunch! With ice cream for dessert!” Misa suddenly turns back to the crew and gives them a big wave. “Thank you, movie people! Goodbye!”

The crew responds with their own well wishes. Their fondness of her is palpable, and it makes Rem smile too. Misa has acclimated well to having her status as a little revealed.

Most people treat her with the usual kindness people have for kids and littles, and then some. When her classification came to light, her PR team scrambled to snag as many interviews as possible—to help clear up the story. In the end, it only made her all the more sympathetic to the general public.

After all, she had the perfect sob story. A poor girl who lost her parents in a burgulary, who had to learn to be independent and thought she had something to prove by working twice as hard as everyone else. Someone who didn’t trust easy. So scared of her true classification and so smart that she was able to cheat the tests.

littles aren’t second-class citizens or anything, but it’s not ideal to be classified as one. To many, the discount cards and benefits aren’t worth the idea of not being taken as seriously. It makes sense that Misa, as someone whose career is grounded in the public’s perception of her, would go to such lengths to hide that.

Misa skips alongside Rem, swinging their hands as they walk. “Can we go see a movie tonight?”

“Of course. Am I going with grown-up Misa or little Misa?”

Misa hums in thought. “Grown-up Misa,” she finally decides. “I’m gonna be big after dinner.”

“I love you either way.” Misa has immaculate control of her headspace. If she says she’s going to be big, she will be. It’s a skill not many littles can boast, and it helps in her case especially.

“I love you too, Rem!” Misa stops skipping to affectionately bump their shoulders together, and Rem is bursting with affection. It’s moments like these where she knows she made the right decision, that giving up everything for Misa was the best thing she could have ever done.

Ever since she woke up in her human body, she’s taken every day as a gift and hasn’t looked back.

~

If there’s one thing Rem wishes she could change, it’s the paparazzi.

They like to hound on Misa as much as any other celebrity, but for Rem, it feels like they target her especially. Maybe it’s because she’s not used to it like Misa is, but that only makes her angrier, that Misa is so used to the cameras and the intrusive questions and everything else that she barely sees anything troubling with it anymore.

The paparazzi are on them the second they step foot out of the limo. Rem gives them her best scowl, as if that alone could be enough to deter them.

Rem hates the media. They’re bad with everyone, but they’re worst with littles. No sense of boundaries whatsoever. She’s caught more than one sleazy reporter sticking their phone under Misa’s skirt after she refused to say if she wore pull-ups or diapers in an interview.

These humans are so lucky Rem no longer has influence over their lives. However, they’re not _that_ lucky. After all, Rem has a solid right hook and zero guilt about using it.

“Just ignore them, Remmy.” Misa says. She keeps her hand locked around Rem’s wrist, effectively keeping her from pouncing.

Rem hates crowds. It was easier when she was a Shinigami. When she could only be seen by a select few people, it was so much easier to ignore them. But now that anyone can touch her, anyone can hurt her, she can’t let her guard down, which only makes her most stressed out.

The crowd buzzes around her, the voices of the paparazzi melding into one singular wall of sound. Her vision swims, so she sees the impending danger a second too late.

One man, evidently annoyed at having his questions ignored, has pushed past his other camera-wielding peers. Angrily, he grabs Misa’s arm and wrenches her around to face him.

Time slows down, the split second before the disaster stretching what feels like hours.

Rem sees Misa pivot on her heel, trying in vain to shake him off. She sees the exact moment where Misa’s eyes glaze over, where her fight or flight response can’t tell the difference between the past and present.

“_Let me go!_” she says. When she swings her fist, the man catches it, which only causes her to panic more.

Rem lunges, cleanly sliding between the two of them and pushing the man back. He stumbles back, his eyes wide, but he doesn’t stick around long enough for Rem to commit his face to memory. He disappears into the rapidly forming crowd.

Someone steps forward, a motherly looking woman in her thirties. She’s completely focused on Misa, and while Rem appreciates her concern, the last thing Misa needs right now is people crowding her.

Rem stops them before they can try. “Everyone back away!” she barks. From the way the onlookers flinch, she’s sure she must look terrifying. Good. Maybe they’ll listen for once. “Give her some space to breathe.”

“Rem?” Misa gasps. “Rem?” She’s reaching out, blindly fumbling for something.

“Yes?” Rem kneels, offering her hand.

Turns out that’s exactly what Misa was looking for. She latches out, her knuckles turning white from the strength of her grip. “Where am I?”

Rem knows where this is going. “You’re not in the police station, Misa. You were cleared of all charges. No one is going to be touching you, and you are not going to be restrained.” She gives Misa’s hand a deliberate squeeze, as if the pressure would be enough to purge her own anxious thoughts. “Please take deep breaths.”

“I need to hear it.” Misa whimpers. Her breath is coming in little puffs, which will only escalate into hyperventilating if Rem can’t help her.

Rem takes the phone from her pocket and pulls up the court transcript. Those final words from the judge are sometimes the only thing that can pull Misa out of her panic.

Rem reads in a low, rushed voice, “The Little Protection Act, Code 13, subsection B. In the case of criminal proceedings, it is unlawful to hold a little in criminal confinement with no access to proper caregivers or provisions, as doing so is knowingly and willfully depriving a little of their primary means of stress reduction and therefore increase the likelihood of a fabricated confession. The aforementioned treatment also constitutes as cruel and unusual punishment.”

Misa takes in a shuddering breath. Rem continues.

“Therefore, under the circumstances of her clear mistreatment, I overturn the police’s decision to keep her in custody, under the suspicion of her being the second Kira, as doing so would be detrimental to her mental and physical health, in addition to the trauma she’s already faced. She will be turned over to the care of Rem Amane for a probationary period of one hundred-eighty days, but will have no reflections of such on her criminal record.”

Misa takes a deep breath. Then another. Then another. She blinks up at Rem, her eyes bleary.

“That man grabbed you.” Rem says. It’s her way of grounding Misa in the present, the here and now.

“Don’t kill him, Remmy. Not before lunch.”

“He got away, anyway.” Rem grumbles. She offers her hand and steadily pulls Misa to her feet. The crowd has thinned to a small degree, but there are still a number of concerned onlookers. Some of them pretend to be engrossed in their phones. “So it’s safe to say you still have an appetite, then?”

“Well, duh!” Misa says, louder than necessary. “The last thing I’m going to do is let some bully with a camera ruin my awesome lunch!” With amazing composure, Misa strides up to the maître d, who clearly saw the whole incident, judging by his expression. “Table for two, please!” She chirps, holding up two fingers.

The maître d smiles. “Right this way, miss.” His eyes shift to Rem, and he raises an eyebrow in a way that asks if he should be bringing a kid’s menu.

Rem shakes her head. “Just have a dessert menu ready. And keep us away from those photographers.”

The maître d nods and, with a discreet nod to nearby security, he leads them to a quiet booth in the back. He hands them each a menu, telling them their waitress will be over shortly before disappearing into the back.

Rem can only hope that means the police will be paying the paparazzi outside a visit.

The waitress brings by a dessert, a tiny parfait with two cherries on top. “It’s on the house,” she says quietly. “And the perpetrator is currently being taken into custody.”

“Thank you.” Rem says stiffly. She picks up her menu by way of ending the conversation—that, and she still has no idea what she wants to order.

Food is still new ground to her. Even as a Shinigami, she was never found of apples. To have everything so new and flavorful is an experience the likes of which she’s never had. It’s amazing, but it also comes with a price. She has to avoid the richer tasting foods—too many tastes and textures can easily overwhelm her.

“You’re being quiet.” Rem points out after a moment. Usually she follows Misa’s lead and orders whatever Misa recommends. “Is something troubling you?”

Misa dares a glance up. “Do you think Light’s okay?”

Rem has to take a moment to school the exasperation out of her face. Because she’s not mad. Not at Misa, at least, and if she answers this next question scowling, Misa is definitely going to think it’s her fault.

“Misa, you know I don’t think it’s good for you to think about him. He’s so good at manipulating you, and I don’t want you getting sucked back in when you just got away.”

Misa deflates ever so slightly. “I know…I’ve just been thinking…does he remember Ryuk at all?”

Rem shakes her head. “Ryuk returned to the Shinigami realm with his Death Note. Light doesn’t remember a thing.”

“Why didn’t Ryuk want to stay?”

Rem lets the question hang as she parses out her answer. The simple truth was that Ryuk didn’t see the entertainment value in sticking around anymore, and had taken his leave the second things looked boring.

He’d had his fun, and Light’s fate had been sealed from the moment he picked up his Death Note. The fact that he got to come out of everything alive is a miracle in itself.

“I can’t say for sure. Maybe he remembered he’d left the oven out.” She highly doubts she’ll ever see Ryuk again.

Misa giggles, but her smile doesn’t last long. “Ryuk was a bad shinigami,” she says seriously.

Rem chuckles. “As was I.” But the more Rem thinks about it, the more she’s convinced that good shinigami don’t exist. If they do, she’s never met them.

“Yeah, but at least you’re cool.”

Despite herself, Rem breaks out in a smile. A full, genuine smile that shows her teeth. She doesn’t smile like that often, in no small part because people are often unnerved by how sharp her teeth look. “I don’t think that’s entirely accurate.”

“It is! Shinigami hide-and-seek was the best when we played it.” Her frown twists into a pout. “I just don’t understand why he’d want to leave, after everything he and Light went through together.”

“I can’t say. I think Ryuk enjoys his own company.”

“I’d miss you if you were gone.”

“I know you would. That’s why I became human.”

Maybe it’s dangerous to make claims like this. Perhaps it’s tempting fate. At the very least, it’s making Misa think she’s much more powerful than she really is. But when Rem says she would do anything and everything for Misa, she means it, with every last beat of her heart.

Misa beams, and that makes everything worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> mcschnuggles.tumblr.com


End file.
